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Why Users Hate IT Products and Developers
bfwebster writes "The Washington Post has a commentary by one of its regular columnists, Marc Fisher, on why computer users hate what he terms 'our techie masters.' One of his more pungent and, I suspect, on-the-money comments: 'Computer training has become the living hell of the American workplace...each new system is more confounding than the last, and each new product strips away many of the advantages of the previous system.' Not a Luddite screed; more an angry outburst asking why commercial software systems are often so wretched. Worth reading and pondering."
fuck you, i love gay sex, die bitches
yes no, no yes.
FP!!!
Snizzle to the nizzle and piss on the prost! werd!
If it weren't for the poor-quality, buggy, and insecure software that microsoft puts out then the situation would be different
Message to computer users and the non-techies: We the techies are smarter than you, and we like to prove it. If you don't understand my new program, it's obviously because you're stupid. Move along now.
[i]"Joan Mann of Old Dominion in Norfolk, has devoted years of study to dysfunctional relations between the Techie and the Clueless, or, in industry jargon, the "IT person" ("information technology") and the "end-user."[/i]
It should read "Guru" and "Luser".
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
To all of my friends, I do not usually forward messages, but this is from my good friend Pearlas Sanborn and she really is an attorney.
If she says that this will work - it WILL work. After all, what have you got to lose?
SORRY EVERYBODY..JUST HAD TO TAKE THE CHANCE!!!
I'm an attorney, and I know the law. This thing is for real.
Rest assured AOL and Intel will follow through with their promises for fear of facing a multimillion-dollar class action suit similar to the one filed by PepsiCo against General Electric not too long ago.
Please do not take this for a junk letter. Bill Gates is sharing his fortune. If you ignore this you will repent later. Microsoft and AOL are now the largest Internet companies and in an effort to make sure that Internet Explorer remains the most widely used program, Microsoft and AOL are running an e-mail beta test.
When you forward this e-mail to friends, Microsoft can and will track it (if you are a Microsoft Windows user) for a two week time period.
For every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you $245.00, for every person that you sent it to that forwards it on, Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and for every third person that receives it, you will be paid $241.00. Within two weeks, Microsoft will contact you for your address and then send you a cheque.
Regards.
Charles S. Bailey
General Manager Field Operations
1-800-842-2332 Ext. 1085 or 904-245-1085 or RNX 292-1085
Charles_Bailey@csx.com
I thought this was a scam myself, but two weeks after receiving this e-mail and forwarding it on, Microsoft contacted me for my address and within days, I received a cheque for US$24,800.00. You need to respond before the beta testing is over. If anyone can afford this Bill Gates is the man.
It's all marketing expense to him. Please forward this to as many people as possible.
You are bound to get at least US$10,000.00.
We're not going to help them out with their e-mail beta test without getting a little something for our time. My brother's girlfriend got in on this a few months ago. When I went to visit him for the Baylor/UT game.
She showed me her check. It was for the sum of $4,324.44 and was stamped "Paid In Full".
Like I said before, I know the law, and this is for real
Intel and AOL are now discussing a merger which would make them the largest Internet company and in an effort make sure that AOL remains the most widely used program, Intel and AOL are running an e-mail beta test.
When you forward this e-mail to friends, Intel can and will track it (if you are a Microsoft Windows user) for a two week time period.
For every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you $203.15.
For every person that you sent it to that forwards it on, Microsoft will pay you $156.29
And for every third person that receives it, you will be paid $17.65.
Within two weeks, Intel will contact you for your address and then send you a check.
I thought this was a scam myself, but a friend of my good friend's Aunt Patricia, who works at Intel, actually got a check of $4,54323 by forwarding this e-mail.
Try it; what have you got to lose????
Notice how bfwebsite says "commercial software systems", and so quietly suggests that free software is nothing to do with this, and actually quite usable. It wouldn't be /. without unnecessarily bias news reporting.
..idea, version change wizards. Say ya got "work from the office" version some number, the software company "upgrades" it. When you boot up, there's an obvious button that will walk the luser through what it USED to look like and what it did back then, THEN it goes on to the "new and improved" version. At least that would give the luser a point of familiar reference for each feature change that occurred.
As opposed to open source software where the wheel is reinvented again and again just for the hell of it? Where perfectly useable commercial products are cloned feature-by-feature and even screen-by-screen because it's an offense against nature to just pay for and use the existing product. Where the spit and polish of a commercial product is deemed unnecessary since you can just "look at the code" if you don't understand it. Where the most common response to a user feature request is "it's open source, so you can add it yourself".
I don't want to sound too negative, since open source has been irrefutably proven to work for the difficult and technical: protocol stacks, OS kernels, web servers, compilers, etc. Commercial software, however, still has the edge in creating attractive and useable human computer interfaces. Why? Because it's not about "learning" and "sharing" and "culture" - it's about grabbing people by the balls and making them want to use the product.
This is true of nearly every product in our wonderfully chaotic system of global capitalism. Why should software be any different?
It's funny -- most of the replies in this topic basically prove what the article said -- that IT people have poor people skills and can't understand that different people think and work in different ways. Most of the replies are people pissing and moaning that users are stupid
the problem is not so much that the user is stupid, but that they get used to It staff and refuse to think for themselves, they want it dumbed down to a idiots level because otherwise they dont want to understand it.
i for one am sick of wiping their arse everytime there program crashes.